Singer Paula West, seen in her San Francisco, Calif., apartment on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, has lost a great deal of weight due to diabetes.

Singer Paula West, seen in her San Francisco, Calif., apartment on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, has lost a great deal of weight due to diabetes.

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

Paula West loses weight, not spirit, to diabetes

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Paula West recalls a survey of women's attitudes about weight. Asked to choose between gaining 50 pounds or getting hit by a Mack truck, most of them chose the truck, she says.

"Women are so desperate to lose weight sometimes," the singer says.

Sitting in her sun-filled Nob Hill apartment, with an enviable view of the bay, West says she still finds herself taken aback when people tell her how "lucky" she is to be sporting a newly streamlined body.

"It's amazing to lose weight this way and have people say you're lucky," she says.

The congratulatory reaction is almost offensive to West: It's true she's dropped 80 pounds, but since the cause is a recent diagnosis of diabetes, she doesn't feel lucky at all, except for the fact that it was diagnosed and she's dealing with it.

"I've had people I haven't seen in months, and I see them on the street and I say 'Hi!' And they're like, 'Uh ... hi?' " she laughs. "I'm talking to them for four or five minutes, and they're like, 'Who's this crazy black woman talking to me right now?' "

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Of course, diabetes is nothing to laugh about, and it's obvious West would rather get on with her life and career than have to talk about it now. That's the kind of woman and artist she is: Her performances are master classes in vocal control. She finds the emotion in the song and the lyrics, not in talking about herself between numbers or larding a performance with phony emotion.

So don't expect West to chat about her health between numbers when she begins a monthlong residency at Feinstein's at the Nikko Thursday night- it's not her style. She's willing to talk about it now not only because she is not the full-figured woman Bay Area audiences have known for three decades, but also because she's frustrated by the speculation about her weight loss, which has included suggestions she has had gastric bypass surgery.

"I went to a Christmas party, and someone came up to me and said, 'Where did you get it done?' And I said, 'Get what done?' And she said, 'The surgery.' 'I didn't have surgery,' I told her, 'and furthermore, I couldn't afford it anyway.' "

West first began to suspect something was wrong almost a year ago, during an especially busy period in her schedule when she was flying back and forth quite frequently between New York and the Bay Area.

"I was feeling really tired," she recalls. "And food was tasting really weird to me, especially pasta and rice - then braised meat. It was tasting sweet. Pretty soon I was eating under 1,000 calories a day because nothing tasted good except raw vegetables."

Suspicions confirmed

By April, she was beginning to lose weight, but figured it was the result of having eliminated so many foods from her diet. When she began having certain symptoms of diabetes - increased thirst, frequent urination - she did what many do: She went to the Internet.

"You know - everybody Googles," she says.

"Then I started thinking maybe that's it (diabetes), but I wasn't sure. What really concerned me was losing so much weight."

She started reintroducing food into her diet to try to stem the weight loss, "but I kept losing."

Medical tests confirmed her suspicion that she has diabetes, although her doctors aren't sure yet if it's Type 1 or 2. She just began an insulin regimen and has yet to get used to having to prick her finger to test her blood.

Diabetes has required some adjustments in her life, not to mention her wardrobe.

At first, she was able to get away with just altering her clothes, but then she went to a size 12, a 10, then to an 8, and new clothes were needed.

"I wear a zero in pants," she exclaims. "I didn't even know it existed. That's not a 6 or a 4, it's a zero. Six in dresses. I was like, I don't look sick, but when I got on the scale, and started getting tests done, I have lost over 80 pounds."

Fans and friends of the San Diego-born singer won't be surprised to learn she isn't looking for sympathy. That's not her style either, and never has been.

Arriving in the Bay Area after college in the late '80s, she spent several years working as a waitress while snagging gigs at various venues around town. Even when she began to develop a strong following, she kept waiting tables as if she were the last person in town to know she could make a living as a singer.

She eventually secured regular appearances at the Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room in New York and a monthlong residency for 10 years at the now-closed Empire Plush Room at the York Hotel in San Francisco.

She worked for many years with pianists Ken Muir and Eric Reed, before beginning an especially fruitful collaboration with George Mesterhazy in 2007 that continued up to his sudden death in 2012, just after the release of their album "Live at the Jazz Standard." It was her fourth album and her first in 11 years.

Signature touches

She's put together a new show for the Nikko, with pianist Adam Shulman, who did most of the arrangements, the first two weeks, and Bruce Barth taking over for the final two weeks. The combo will include West regulars Ed Cherry on guitar, Jerome Jennings on drums and Barak Mori on bass. As always, the set will include a Bob Dylan song, as well as songs by Hank Williams, Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter, among others.

In other words, audiences can expect a brand-new show with many of the signature touches that have made West an audience favorite for years.

Perhaps the only real difference this time is that she'll take up a little less room on the stage.